Virtual Memory Problem

hullaballoo

Hey,

I keep getting the following message:



Every time it happens, my computer slows down and applications start to freeze up - which is what I'd expect.

So, I googled the problem and the microsoft site explained what to do: increase paging file size. Duly, I obeyed and set it to 372-754MB on C:.

I also have a drive partition so that C: is approx. 11.7GB with 3GB free space and is approx. 44GB with approx. 34GB free. I don't know why the partition's there, that's just how UCD did things.

When I went to increase the paging file, I just copied the numbers from the drive. This hasn't resolved the problem, but seems to have made it worse.

I'm clearly not very tech-savvy so any help would be appreciated? Many thanks in advance.

hulla.

mukki

don't sue me if you make a haimes of this...


right click my computer
properties
vista only click advanced system settings on left hand pane

in the new window...
click advanced tab
in performance box click settings
advanced tab
press change button

in new window....
click c drive
click no pagefile and press set button (no need as C is too small)
click on d drive
click costom size
set initial size to 2048
set max size to 2048
press set
press OK to all windows and reboot

anymore problems post up a pick of your taskmanager processes list

hullaballoo

Thanks for that. I suppose it makes sense but I wasn't sure if I needed to use c: for it. I'll be back with that pic if needs be. Thanks again.

Personally I think that if you're getting this message on a regular basis then you should probably put more RAM in your machine.

sceptre

372-754MB really is sod-all (that's likely to cause real problems as it's almost nothing these days)

How much physical memory do you have in your machine?

The general rule for simplicity tends to be to set a fixed pagefile size (using mukki's procedure above) of 1.5 times the physical memory in your machine.

The advantage of a fixed size is that if you defragment the pagefile once then it won't get fragmented again so Windows isn't continually poking around the disc to swap in and out of memory. And put it all on the D drive like mukki said, that's the one with the free space. There are some who'd swear by not having a pagefile at all if you've enough memory in the machine but you definitely don't have enough to even think about doing this.

So how much RAM is in your machine? (the quickest way to check is probably to open Task manager (ctrl-alt-del, go to the Performance tab and see what the total under Physical memory is. That'll be in kilobytes, divide it by 1024)

Soundman

sceptre wrote: »

So how much RAM is in your machine? (the quickest way to check is probably to open Task manager (ctrl-alt-del, go to the Performance tab and see what the total under Physical memory is. That'll be in kilobytes, divide it by 1024)

Or right click My Computer and click Properties.

mukki

Karsini wrote: »

Personally I think that if you're getting this message on a regular basis then you should probably put more RAM in your machine.

i am thinking it a malware problem

i told the OP how to set the pagefile up, in case he messed it up on his attempt to fix it.

if he still has problems, i'd say its a job for ASJ

hullaballoo

Ok, I divided the total physical memory by 1024 and got 4140.4765625. I've no idea what that means.

I also have no idea what ASJ is? Anyway, since I did what mukki suggested, I haven't seen any warnings but IE keeps freezing, but I don't really care about that. Chrome seems to be a bit of a memory hog, but it's running more smoothly.

Fysh

Out of curiosity, a couple of questions:

What version of Windows and service pack are you on? Also, how much physical RAM is in the machine?

(Right-click My Computer, select properties - the above info will be under the General tab)

I ask because if you're running XP at SP3 you'll realistically need 1GB or more to get decent performance. If it's Vista you should have 2GB or more (though you can get away with less if you turn off the Aero Glass theme).

hullaballoo

Is that what you're looking for? Is it important that I have a drive partition for C: (System) and (Data)? As I said, they're approx. 12 GB (3 free) and 44GB (34 free).

Sorry I'm being such a nonce about this but instead of learning something useful in college, I learnt how to sue old ladies for their pensions.

Fysh

Hi, that's what I was looking for alright. At a guess you've got 512MB total system memory, with 8MB going on an Intel integrated video adapter of some sort, hence the 504MB shown in the properties.

That's part of your problem - for Windows XP Pro with service pack 3, 512MB isn't a great deal. I don't think Microsoft have ever admitted it explicitly, but at this stage you'd realistically want to have 1GB or more to get decent performance.

In terms of the separate partitions, there's a certain sense to it. With windows installed on your C: drive that'll be the drive used for program files and OS-related tasks like paging files etc. Windows will tend to experience really slow performance issues if you have less than 1GB free on your system drive (C: in this case), so by having a separate partition for your user data you minimise the risk of slowing the system to a crawl due to having a few too many mp3s on there or what have you.

Now, I've had a look at the documentation for the D610 and it can take up to 2GB of DDR2 (details here). You've probably got 1 512MB SODIMM in there now, so you should consider buying more memory (preferably 2 1GB SODIMMs to get you up to 2GB, but at least 1 512MB SODIMM - you'll more than likely notice a significant improvement by going up to 1GB). It's reasonably straightforward to install new memory according to the service manual (details here) and in fairness I've opened up a good few D-series latitudes at work and they're mostly straightforward enough. If you can spare a few euro my advice would be to have a look at something like MemoryC's Memory Configurator (I've used them a good few times and never been steered wrong by them yet) and get some new RAM. By the look of it you should be able to upgrade to 2GB for about €35 plus postage....

Hope this helps.

Edited to add:

In the meantime you can set your paging file to the recommended size. To do this, right click on My Computer. Select Properties. Go to Advanced, then select Performance Settings. Select the Advanced tab, and under Virtual Memory click Change. Highlight your C: drive, then select the Custom Size radio button and enter 768MB as the initial size and 1536MB as the maximum size. Click Set, then OK, and you should be prompted to reboot for the changes to take effect.

In the Advanced > Performance Settings area you'll also see a Visual Effects tab. You can set Windows to optimise for best performance there and improve things somewhat if you find overall performance to be slower than you'd like.

hullaballoo

Wow, thanks a million, Fysh. I'll have to bookmark this thread for reference in future so that I know what to do, but really, thanks.

Just out of curiosity, if I do what you say, will I be safe to upgrade to the next professional OS (whatever that is) in the future, or should I think about buying a new laptop at that stage? I ask because using this laptop is second-nature to me and re-learning everything if I were to change would take time I probably won't have.

Fysh

To be honest, I think you'd be better off with a new laptop to really take advantage of Windows 7 Pro when it comes out. You'll probably be able to run the 32-bit version on it, but you'll most likely have to turn most of the graphical features off to get decent performance.

If you're interested in Win7, I'd suggest downloading the Release Candidate from Microsoft (go here and get it quick, they're pulling it on August 20th) and trying it out at some point to see how you get on. Ideally the way to try it would be to get a separate hard drive for the laptop and install Win7 on that, so that if you decide you don't like it you've still got the original disk. On the other hand, that's more money spent on a laptop you may end up having to replace due to age anyway...

Capt'n Midnight

hullaballoo wrote:

Just out of curiosity, if I do what you say, will I be safe to upgrade to the next professional OS (whatever that is) in the future, or should I think about buying a new laptop at that stage? I ask because using this laptop is second-nature to me and re-learning everything if I were to change would take time I probably won't have.

It's a fairly old laptop so won't run the latest OS
the ram is 504 MB which means it's video card is using shared memory and so would be tad slow